Repent
by agrajagthetesty
Summary: On the fourth day, there is a man in his room, crouching on the floor in front of him and looking at him with wide froglike eyes. Mello's first encounter with L.


_WARNING: Spoilers (Mello's real name)_

_

* * *

_**Repent**

On the first day, he eats nothing, drinks nothing, and talks to no-one. Instead he spends the day in the room he has been given, taking the curtains down off their rails and systematically tearing them into long thin strips, followed by all of the clothes from the wardrobe, tearing along seams where possible and shredding the rest. Once this has been achieved, he lies on the bed and stares at the ceiling without blinking for as long as he can. The bed is extremely comfortable, he thinks. That will have to change.

On the second day, he eats nothing, drinks nothing, and utters one word- "Scissors", in response to a knock on his door and a voice asking if there is anything he would like. He rips the wallpaper off the walls on that day, with sounds like skin tearing, and then uses the scissors to carve great gashes into the walls. The door is too tough to mark. Afterwards, he slits open the cushions and pulls out feathers until the room is like a snow globe.

On the third day, there is a glass of water in his room. He alternates between taking small tips of it, as little as he can manage, and carving up his mattress with the scissors. It is only one task, but it is hard and takes him half the day to complete. He feels tired afterwards, and sits in the mountains of torn wallpaper, wondering whether or not to begin eating again. By the end of the day, he has still not decided.

On the fourth day, there is a man in his room, crouching on the floor in front of him and looking at him with wide froglike eyes. His head is swimming and his eyes cannot focus, but he still feels uncomfortable under this man's stare.

The man asks him a question in several different languages before finally using one that he understands.

"They took my name away," the boy says.

The man does not react, moving on to repeat himself in more languages from his apparently endless selection.

"Did you hear me? Don't you understand?" the boy says, before realising that his lips are not moving and he has only spoken inside his head.

"They took my name away," he says out loud.

The skin between the man's eyes creases. He moves as if to place the glass of water into his hand.

He pushes it away. "No," he says.

"If you don't drink, I cannot understand you."

He lets it happen: the man's hand tilting his head back, the chink of glass between his teeth, coolness trickling over his lips and down his chin. He considers spitting, but there would be no point in it at this stage.

He drinks.

The man smiles.

"How long have you been here?"

"Days," the boy replies, wiping his mouth with his sleeve, his voice still cracked and hoarse.

"And you haven't eaten for all that time?"

He shakes his head.

"Why?"

He blinks. For a second his mind is full of screaming, darkness, noise, blood-

It dies away. His eyes go blank. "They took my name away," he says.

"I know."

His breath catches. The cold water turns over in his stomach. "No," he says. "No, you don't."

"Yes I do. It happened to me as well."

The boy looks up, forcing his eyes to focus. He sees dishevelled hair, bare toes, thin fingers placing the glass of water back in his hand. He blinks slowly. "It did? Did they tell you to forget your real name?"

"Yes."

"Have you?"

"I haven't. I find it difficult to forget things on command."

The boy smiles through cracked lips.

"They will listen to your wishes here," the man says. "You must not use your real name for your own safety- although that may not concern you. But they cannot change your mind, and they will not question your decisions as long as you can explain your reasons for making them."

The boy drinks again, thinking.

"Do you know where we are?"

"Yes."

"So you must know why they have this policy."

"I know. But-"

"What is your name?"

The boy tilts his head. Hair falls across his face. "Mihael."

"Why have you not been eating, Mihael?"

He hesitates. This man has been in the same position as him. They have shared experience. He cannot lie. "I… lost everything," he says, trying to explain it. "Everything I had. My name, my home, all of my… important things. They took them away."

"Wammy's House did?"

"Not them. The angels."

The man stares at him, and his thumb slides over his bottom lip and into his mouth as if drawn by a magnet.

"You shouldn't do that," the boy says, suddenly overwhelmed by a deep weariness. He lies back into the torn wallpaper and closes his eyes. "It's bad for you. I stopped years ago."

The man blinks as if the boy is suddenly speaking a language that even he does not understand, and removes his thumb from his mouth.

"I feel tired," the boy says. "Go away so I can sleep."

"Why do you say the angels did it?"

The boy's eyes open. He has been ignored. "Because they do things like that, stupid! They take things away and they give them back."

"Don't angels help people?"

"Not bad people. That's why there's a hell."

The man moves over towards him, shuffling along on his toes in his precarious crouch. The boy tenses, thinking he is going to try and touch him. But the man just looks at him again from the new angle, sucking his thumb once more.

"Don't do that," the boy says.

"Do you know about the law?" the man asks, ignoring him again, and mumbling around his thumb.

"Of course I do," the boy snaps. "How old are you? You're like a little kid."

"If someone breaks the law, what does that make him?"

"A criminal. A bad person."

"If someone starts to help others by catching criminals, what does that make him?"

The boy's eyes flicker. He meets the man's gaze and holds it without blinking. "It makes him someone who repents."

Silence.

"Can I have some more water?"

The man hands it over. The boy sits up and drinks slowly, narrowing his eyes.

"I suggest," says the man, "that you ask for whatever you want from the people who run this house. What you want to eat, to wear, to learn. They will supply it. Anything. As long as you understand the consequences. What is your favourite food?"

The boy put the empty glass on the floor beside him, shaking his head. "No."

"No?"

"I won't do that. Not yet. Not until…" He yawns.

"Until what?"

But the boy is lying down again, curling on his side, his fists closing around handfuls of paper.

The man stands and goes to the door, his feet shuffling through fabric and feathers.

"You're leaving," the boy says, frowning through the fog descending over his eyes.

"You said you wanted to sleep."

"I thought you weren't listening."

The man turns and pins the boy with his eyes. "I always listen."

The boy pulls the bottom of his shirt down over his knees. "Do you live here?"

"No."

"Will I see you again?"

"I don't know."

He struggles to clear his head. "Then…"

The man opens the door, and watches as the boy's eyelids droop and close. "Ask for L," he says.

* * *

_Author's notes: Mello and L are my two favourite characters and I've often wondered what would happen if they met in this situation. Not much to say beyond that, except that a review would be nice._


End file.
